Month: November 2015

Amongst other things, Natasa notes that the campaigners for the HRA have directed their attention to getting popular support for the Act, by employing certain examples of its application. The examples used have been (generally speaking):

on the basis of largely law-abiding, relateable-to-the-average-voter UK citizens benefiting from [the HRA] (and standing to lose from its repeal)

I am, on balance, in favour of the Human Rights Act, and think that the European Convention on Human Rights has made the world a better place. Whilst the European Court of Human Rights is capable of improvement, it is institutionally necessary if the open textured rights in the Convention are to be meaningful. Without such a central court, signatory states could each adopt their own idiosyncratic interpretations, and the entire purpose of the Convention defeated.

But, the case for the Convention is not as easy and obvious as its supporters sometimes believe. Two examples of such over confidence are

Two tensions lie at the heart of disagreements about the constitution in the United Kingdom. The first is the relation of the state to the nations that comprise it — the territorial constitution, the Union and devolution. The second is the relationship between the courts and what Americans would call the “political branches” — government and Parliament. I can think of no constitutional lawyer who would contest the proposition that the courts in the United Kingdom have become significantly stronger and more powerful than they were — say — twenty-five years ago. It is not only a perfectly reasonable question but, I would argue, it has now become a clearly required question to ask: have they become too powerful and, if so, what should be done about that.

We are still waiting for the government to provide more details of its proposed UK Bill of Rights, further to its manifesto commitment to repeal the Human Rights Act. The consultation process that has been promised on this has yet to be launched.

On 9 September Dominic Raab (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Ministry of Justice) stated that we would not ‘have too long to wait for the consultation’ which would be released ‘towards the end of the autumn’. The leaves have fallen – and so I am now assuming that this was a reference to the astronomical definition of autumn, which ends on… 21 December (or so I understand). Continue reading →